The open systems model is a concept that seeks to assess the relationship between organizations and their environments. According to the theory, the environment has significant impact on the environment. It regards the environment as an entity that exerts forces that are political, economic, and economic in nature. Equally, the environment also avails vital resources to the organization that enhancing survivability and change. In describing the model, Allen & Sawhney (2009) say, “The principle starting assumption is that the external variables or events play a significant role in explaining what is happening within an organization” (p. 48). The knowledge of the open systems model is essential for a criminal justice administrator. Just like any other administrator, these professionals will be working with employees. The workers will be moving back and forth from their places of work to the social groups. By doing so, they inadvertently accumulate external influences and bring them to the organization, including values and principles. The criminal justice administrator can also use the open systems model to assess the problems affecting the department, such as prisoner abuse and overworking of the correctional officers. For instance, budget cuts in the correctional department mean that no new correctional officers will be employed. The existing workforce will be overburdened which could eventually lead to frustration and anger on the part of the officers. In turn, they will vent their misfortunes by abusing the prisoners. Therefore, analyzing the problem of prisoner abuse should begin with assessing the external factors happening at the environmental level (Allen & Sawhney, 2009). Thirdly, the criminal justice administrator should understand the model to predict the relationship between the police and the community members. If the members of the community, for example, perceive that the police are not well-represented in terms of racial and ethnic aspects, they might not corporate with them. The failure of the police in community policing will, therefore, be as a result of environmental factors. Research has well-documented the differences between leadership and management, and the same applies to the context of the criminal justice administration. It is also crucial to note that a modern police service requires a mixture of good leadership and good management practices. However, in the context of criminal justice, differentiating the two concepts has often caused problems thanks to the complex nature of the profession. Kingshott (2006) describes the leadership attributes that an individual can possess including bravery, creativity, caring, confidence, and industrious among others. Leaders also need to be good communicators and nurturers. A criminal justice administrator will need to understand that as much as their role encompasses management, they should remain leaders especially given the complexities surrounding the profession. They should inspire their workforce to navigate through the difficult roles of enhancing criminal justice.
As leaders, the administrators must identify long-term goals and ensure that they are aligned to the objectives of the workforce. Leadership will focus more on the interpersonal relationship that the administrators have with different professionals within the justice system. Kingshott (2006) contends that within the criminal justice administration, management is about effectiveness and efficiency. Effectiveness involves bringing the desired change. On the contrary, efficiency revolves around performing an action and rooting for the desired outcome. As a manager, the administrator will work on short-term goals such as ending crime in a locality or improving the community policing. However, leadership will go for long-term goals such as improving police perceptions among the public. As a manager, the administrator will focus on the day to day running of the organization and implementation of policies that arise from the higher authorities. Whereas both aspects are essential, understanding the differences is critical for achieving short-term and long-term goals. Criminal justice organizations operate in a very complex environment. The complexity in this environment has been contributed by the difficulties in mapping illegal activities and correcting the incarcerated individuals. More importantly, policing and the general criminal justice organization continues to evolve. Flynn and Herrington (2015) identify the causes of the complexities as the emergence of new threats, new communities, new technologies, and new forms of crimes. Although new opportunities are created, emerging challenges also set in. The existing complexities have called upon the criminal justice leadership to change in reaction to these trends. Criminal justice leaders are now called upon to conduct their business with a keen emphasis on efficiency and ensure that the complexities do not interfere with policing or correctional services. The advent of technology remains one of the important ways through which administrators have managed to prevent the complexities. For instance, with the police now wearing the body-worn cameras while working in the community, it is easier to provide evidence in cases where police have been implicated in using excessive power. Over the past few years, Flynn and Herrington (2015) assert that the complexities in the criminal justice organizations have resulted from the notion that leadership is a one-person show. Administrators must, therefore, acknowledge that one-person leadership has no place in the current dispensation. In a bid to develop better functions of the organization, focus should be placed on capacity building and improving individuals working within the system. As a complex working environment, the administrator must also appreciate the vital role of coordination. High-level cooperation allows the police to properly deal with threats and respond to situation with an increased level of efficiency. Lastly, administrators should note that working in a complex environment requires continuous learning, developing standard operating procedures, and innovating new ways of operation. Research has found out that organizations are entities where the struggle for power balance occurs. Just like any other workplace, criminal justice organizations have multiple conflicting and interacting internal and external constituencies that affect their operations. Internal constituencies are groups within the criminal justice organization that affect the entity from the inside. The examples of internal constituencies in the criminal justice organization include the line personnel and judges. The primary role of the internal stakeholders includes interpretation and enforcement of the law. The line personnel, in this case, encompass the police officers, probation officers, correctional officers, and the parole officers among others. The judge, on the other hand, hears the cases and reads the sentence (Johnstone & Van Ness, 2013). They hear cases of plea bargaining and parole thereby determining the amount of time a prisoner takes in the correctional facility. The criminal justice organization also has external constituencies. They affect the operations of criminal justice from the outside. The examples include the prisoners’ rights movements and the media. The prisoners’ rights movements have the ability to influence the operations of the correctional facility from the outside. Through advocacy, they fight for the rights of the incarcerated including ensuring that they live in human condition. They also engage in activism especially if they feel that a prison facility violates the fundamental human rights accorded to inmates. The role of the media as an external constituent cannot be underestimated. The media uncovers the operations in various correctional facilities (Johnstone & Van Ness, 2013). They also scrutinize the police for compliance with human rights and the laws of the land. Both the prisoners’ rights movements and the media can significantly affect policy and operations within the criminal justice organization. The criminal justice organization exists in the form of a system. Many scholars have suggested theories such as the open model approach and the general system theory (GST) to decipher the interrelatedness within the system. Some of the goals of the criminal justice organization include accurate identification of the perpetrators, retribution, fair adjudication, rehabilitation, and restoration. However, these goals are not achieved in isolation but require the input of different stakeholders within the organization. As such, the development of goal complexity is a common problem. Giblin (2013) assert that in most cases, multiple organizations fail to contribute in accordance with their intended goal. For instance, the court can fail testing evidence and determining guilt. The crime laboratory can fail to achieve the desired outcomes. The administrative breakdown can also result in unwanted scenarios such as insecurities in the prisons and jails. Thus, when one organization within the system fails, then the others are unlikely to achieve one or all of the goals of the criminal justice identified above. Therefore, it is imperative upon the criminal justice administrator to understand the nature of goal complexity and the circumstances upon which it occurs. The administrator works at the apex of the criminal justice system, and as leaders and managers, they must enhance efficiency and effectiveness. First, they will need to understand the importance of the GST in appreciating the functionality of the criminal justice system. According to the model, parts of a system work together to achieve a common goal. For the criminal justice organization to avoid the goal complexities, efficiency should be spread equally across the various sectors including the court, correctional facility, and the police. Giblin (2013) also identifies the overlapping of roles as a factor that could contribute to the unwanted complexity of goals. The overlapping of roles can happen in professions such as the parole officer and the correctional officer among others. Here, the administrator will be required to clearly delineate roles and responsibilities among the internal constituencies. Bureaucracy is regarded as the most ideal form of organizational arrangement or governance. Lawson (2009) says, “Bureaucracy is the ideal form of organization for coordinating, supervising, and managing the work of specialists.” In this kind of dispensation, the functions, work roles, and flows are specified. Other than the formalization of work, procedures are specified and standardized. The author goes ahead to note that bureaucracy provides a system of norms and encourages individuals to think through a particular line. However, there is a general view that professionalism does not gel with a bureaucratic system. Researchers have gone to the extent of implicating bureaucracy in poor or sub-optimal performance. According to Lawson, bureaucracy is the primary reason why many professionals cannot function to their potential best. Most fundamentally, it prevents them from working according to professional standards. Bureaucracy is characterized by meaningless paperwork and mind-numbing routines. Individuals have to respect hierarchy and act according to the protocol. In essence, it affects autonomy, workmanship, and creativity. It also forces an individual to follow a host of procedures that do not have an impact on their professional development. Therefore, it could be concluded that bureaucracy is the reason behind the countless problems that professionals experience in their job areas. The bad thing is that it is impossible to solve some of these problems due to the permanence of bureaucracy as a system of administration. The situation is even worse in the subtype known as the coercive bureaucracy. Here, professionals are regarded as entities subject to supervision, motivation, management, and control. The supervisors on their part believe that the main reasons why people work are to earn their incentives. Lawson (2009) further believes that in a coercive bureaucracy, professionals have limited expertise to give to their superiors. In my opinion, the “war on terror” has significantly impacted local enforcement practices. With the knowledge of the potential for a terror attack, local law enforcement officials are well-equipped more than before. They have received anti-terror training which has improved their response and vigilance. More focus has now been placed on community policing a factor that has been informed by the knowledge that terror activities are arranged within the local scene.
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Immigration remains one of the most contentious issues in the United States. Although America has been known for its hospitality, several economic and political factors have since limited the federal agencies' ability to enforce the immigration laws. There is a general feeling that immigrants infiltrating the country are taking away the jobs meant for the locals especially given that they work under low remuneration. As a country, catering to the needs of the immigrants also adds to budgetary burdens. As of the political forces, terrorism and poor international relations that the US has especially with the Muslim nations have adversely affected the implementation.
The criminal justice agencies must continue innovating in a bid to come up with technology that will enhance their future operations. Major changes are expected in the area of artificial intelligence (AI). The invention of law enforcement robotics will help especially in dangerous situations such as in cases of bombs or rescuing disaster victims (Weisburd & Braga, 2019). The development in big data also calls for the creation of an interoperability system that will bring all criminal justice departments under the same management system. As such, this will enhance sharing of data across the spectrum and the achievement of common goals.
References
Allen, J. M., & Sawhney, R. (2009). Administration and management in criminal justice: A service quality approach. Sage.
Flynn, E. A., & Herrington, V. (2015). Toward a profession of police leadership (pp. 1-18). Laurel, MD: US Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, National Institute of Justice.
Giblin, M. J. (2013). Organization and management in the criminal justice system (Vol. 12). Sage.
Johnstone, G., & Van Ness, D. (Eds.). (2013). Handbook of restorative justice. Routledge.
Kingshott, B. F. (2006). The role of management and leadership within the context of police service delivery. Criminal justice studies, 19(2), 121-137.
Lawson, H. (2009). Coercive and enabling bureaucracies: A selective summary of the main differences. Invited Brief, University of Albany.
Weisburd, D., & Braga, A. A. (Eds.). (2019). Police innovation: Contrasting perspectives. Cambridge University Press.
